"There's few red deer left," said the man gloomily. "It used to be
deer and men; it is sheep and dogs now."

After a painful silence the dominie said,

"Something ought to be done for those braw fellows. They canna ditch
and delve like an Irish peasant. It would be like harnessing stags in
a plough."

Then Crawford spoke cautiously of his intention, and to his delight
the dominie approved it.

"I'll send them out in Read & Murray's best ships. I'll gie each head
o' a family what you think right, Tallisker, and I'll put £100 in your
hands for special cases o' help. And you will speak to the men and
their wives for me, for it is a thing I canna bear to do."

But the men too listened eagerly to the proposition. They trusted the
dominie, and they were weary of picking up a precarious living in
hunting and fishing, and relying on the chief in emergencies. Their
old feudal love and reverence still remained in a large measure, but
they were quite sensible that everything had changed in their little
world, and that they were out of tune with it. Some few of their
number had made their way to India or Canada, and there was a vague
dissatisfaction which only required a prospect of change to develop.
As time went on, and the laird's plan for opening the coal beds on his
estate got known, the men became impatient to be gone.

In the early part of March two large ships lay off the coast waiting